— Repeat after me: Mandatory, all-ages helmet laws are a bad idea. File away this first-person account of a woman in Australia who got her license suspended, her property impounded, and was treated like a criminal for not wearing one. The saga spurred her to say, “The only proven thing helmets protect us from are fines.”

— Wondering why there’s so much focus on “women on bikes” these days? Here’s a review of City Cycling, a new book by Rutgers University researcher John Pucher,x who is one of the people largely credited with opening eyes to the cycling gender gap.

— If you missed Ian Karmel’s “Portland as Fuck” screed in the Portland Mercury, it’s worth a read (and so are the hilarious comments).

— We don’t hear much about Philadelphia when the big bike cities are being discussed; but a newly passed “complete streets” bill — which includes new laws against dooring — might help move things forward.

Abandoned bikes. Eyesores everywhere, rusting, getting in people’s way, vandalized. All they need to do is send out city sanitation workers to bust the locks and cart them away–to the dump or wherever. At this point, after so many years of seeming neglect, it will be a Herculean task. In some places there’s one open space to 3 or 4 abandoned bikes. When I see this I think that people don’t respect bikes enough. When bikes “win” they’re no longer “cool,” they move to the status of taken-for-granted object, and no one seems to care if their carcasses litter the landscape. They’re invisible.

Mopeds. For some reason they allow motorbikes on bike lanes if (I think) they have under a 50cc motor (blue license plate). They can zip through traffic faster if they’re in with the bikes. But they’re in practice just as fast as cars, and a real hazard. I couldn’t believe the passivity of cyclists before this menace. It seems that’s changing, though. (Is this the future of e-bikes?)

That article is complete garbage. The author apparently doesn’t understand anything about cycling, and didn’t do a whole lot of research.

I agree with you on those two points, though. Those are the biggest problems. I was buzzed by several mopeds, one came within inches of my handlebars while passing at about 30mph. It is unbelievable that they allow this behavior to occur.

“…All they need to do is send out city sanitation workers to bust the locks and cart them away–to the dump or wherever. At this point, after so many years of seeming neglect, it will be a Herculean task. …” Al from PA

Seems like a great, potentially legal opportunity for people that otherwise steal bikes, metal, and other things. Maybe officials could somehow work out an arrangement with independent contractors, as seems to me done here in the Beaverton and Portland with abandoned or neglected cars: After a period of time, the City tags the vehicle, and a tow operator hauls them away.

I suppose though, with unregistered/plated bikes, a remedy like that comes to the problem of how to be certain the bike that’s been tagged really is abandoned, and not just opportunistically tagged by a thief.

Parking enforcement goes by daily and applies a thin braided steel cable to the frame (of obviously abandoned bikes) with an attached weather proof tag that display the following items:
(1) official notice that this bicycle has been registered as an abandoned bicycle
(2) contact information to dispute this (maybe your employer has no indoor bike storage)
(3) on the back a QR code (because it is essentially open source and thus implementation is free) that represents a randomly generated encrypted ID code that references a database that only parking enforcement have access to. The database of would include a physical description of the bicycle in question, maybe even a photo, to reduce abuse and false positives.

Pretty sure this is exactly how Portland parking enforcement handles it. I’ve seen two bikes near my work get green tagged before being cut loose and freed. Ironically, it wasn’t until one of these bikes got tagged that it almost immediately lost it’s fenders, seat, etc.

How is mandatory bike helmets for bike riders different from requiring helmets for motorcycles, or seat belts for people in cars, or car seats? These things protect individuals from injuries and protect society from the burden of caring for people with head injuries.

One way I think they are different is that seatbelts protect the wearer from injuries and/or death typically caused by speed and risks emanating from the car itself. A bike helmet, as I’ve understood it, statistically seems more likely to protect the wearer from the seatbelt-equipped objects rather than something inherent to the bicycle. Not that there aren’t single vehicle crashes where a helmet also does some good, but the experience in the Netherlands, where basically no one wears a helmet and the injury and death rates for those riding bikes are miniscule compared to ours here in the US suggests there’s something to this.

Moto helmets are NOT the styrofoam we call bike helmets. Seat belts are an entirely different beast – when I was young voters repealed mandatory seat belt laws three times in my state before the insurance industry lobbied the federal gov’t to withhold funding for states without these laws. I personally choose to wear a helmet when I ride, but I certainly don’t want to see bicycling become as regulated as the auto industry.

Also, given what I’ve seen in my ER, I’m guessing society’s cost of caring for head injuries is insignificant compared to the costs of obesity and alcohol/drug abuse.

There are numerous basic differences between transportation modes that bikes, motorcycles and motor vehicle are, that make a case for mandatory use of helmets for motorcycles and seat-belts for motor vehicle, but not necessarily for bicycle use.

To me, 16 and under, or maybe…14 under mandatory bicycle helmet use laws seem reasonable, but not all ages bicycle helmet use laws. Why it is that Australia came to enact an all ages mandatory bicycle helmet use law, and why it continues to have such a law, is a story I’ve never run across, even having done a fair bit of online searching. If the New South Wales blog writer, Sue Abbott tells that story somewhere on her blog, I haven’t found it yet.

When it comes to bike safety, Australia tends to be the leading example of what NOT to do. This is the same country where a renowned Professional Lawn-Bowler (you read that right) attacked a cyclist in traffic and was applauded for it. And it also happens to be a country where, as a car driver, you are allowed to fling your door open into traffic to maim a passing cyclist, and the Cyclist gets the ticket – assuming they survive their injuries (I swear to God, I’m not making this up). So much for protecting society.

Obsessing over helmets is horrible misdirection away from things that are actual safety concerns. It’s a lot like having a flooded basement and telling your kids that they have to wear hip-waders if they want to go down there, and then doing nothing about the flood itself. Short sighted? Yes. Effective? Maybe, if you just don’t want anyone to go there. Stupid? Absolutely. Your kid’s aren’t any less likely to drown in hip-waders, so just fix the goddamn leak already.

renowned professional lawn bowler?… I hate to disabuse you, and yes lawn bowling is popular in Australia (amongst the retired set), but Shane Warne, the bowler in question is a cricketer, a fast bowler – the equivalent of a power pitcher in baseball.

Sue Abbott fancies herself the Gandhi of helmet laws, the more preposterous her treatment by the authorities the more it suits her purposes.

So true, Spiffy. I found way too many of the comments disturbing and not at all hilarious. Usually from a Merc story on biking I expect a few jerkoffs, but only a few. he number of biking-hostile comments is pretty high on this one. Makes me wonder if a link to the article from somewhere else has attracted a higher than usual number of cyclist haters to comment.

Regarding the list of top candidates for the new Transpo Secretary, I’d love to se our beloved Blumenhauer get the post – but then, I’d simultaneously hate to lose him as an effective Representative in Congress.